I'd like to nominate Secret Warriors, by Johnathan Hickman. The little book that could, it came right out of Secret Invasion with a fantastic hook
Hail Hydra
and a great cast that really went through the ringer. That Hickman managed to cram his other project, S.H.I.E.L.D. into it was just mind boggling.
I'm pretty sure that ALL of Hickman's Marvel books are connected and planned that way. He didn't cram S.H.I.E.L.D. into Secret Warriors, it was there all along
Just like Hydra
Yet another time I am deeply saddened the Hail Hydra buttons have left us
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Batman and Robin by Grant Morrison et al. - Essentially one of two books that got me reading monthly comics again, with the other being...
Green Lantern by Geoff Johns - an excellent book that surprisingly managed to stay fresh and fun for the majority of its run, even into the New 52. One of the best endings I've ever read for a comic run.
Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman - duh. I didn't expect to like the FF anymore after so many authors just made Reed into a dick over and over again when I tried to read it as a kid. Hickman rehabed Reed while at the same time moving his family a little closer to his position, expanding that family through the FF, and restoring the cosmic wonder to the F4 as a team.
FF by Matt Fraction and Michael Allred (and Laura Allred and Lee Allred) - I don't always buy into the big internet feels comics, but this was probably my favorite of the original Marvel NOW! titles. So warm and funny, while at the same time giving Scott Lang a really personal character arc. The art by the Allreds made the book feel even more personal, and really drove the title's sense of weird adventure.
Seconds for:
Wolverine and the X-Men - this at time came pretty close to how I felt about Fraction's FF. Just a wonderful book, and the thing that pulled me kicking and screaming into the Marvel U in time for AvX and Marvel NOW!
Avengers/New Avengers by Jonathan Hickman - more cosmic insanity.
I'm also going to second Wednesday Comics, Hawkeye, Captain America Volume 7 (Remender), Thor: God of Thunder, Batwoman, Cable and Deadpool, Green Lantern Corps, and 52. Phew!
And to clarify, which of you were nominating Hickman FF and which of you (if any) were nominating Fraction FF?
This somehow ended up being an even harder list to cut down than the last category, so much so that I'm actually going to make 6 nominations and then god knows what I'll do when it's actually time to vote.
Angela: Asgard's Assassin by Marguerite Benning and Kieron Gillen.
This is a cosmic book that's only had 5 issues, but the world building and characters have immediately jumped into full iconic status in my mind. Benning and Gillen have been given seemingly free reign to develop The Tenth Realm, and they've woven it into the existing cosmos masterfully.
On top of that, they've introduced one hell of a trans character who walks a perfect line between not being defined exclusively by her status as trans and yet making it a core part of the character. I'm not aware of any other major trans characters in Marvel right now, so it kind of stands out in that regard.
The art, by Stephanie Hans and Phil Jimenez, is equally impressive. It's not the best art I've seen in comics, but it's vibrant and distinctive, with a few pages of brilliant and beautiful storytelling images in the middle of each issue.
I expected the series to be average, maybe a little exciting, but I'm super in love with it.
Also nominating She-Hulk by Charles Soule and Javier Pulido
Fun, funny, fast paced, this is a perfect street level, light-hearted adventure, where Soule actually gets to flex some of his lawyer knowledge and drags out Patsy Walker, Hellcat, to team up with Shulkie, as well as a small handful of fantastic new characters. While it only lasted 12 issues, Howard the Duck is following directly in its footsteps (and is great too)
Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday was the book that in my opinion saved the X-Men. Coming off an entire decade of confusion and turmoil in the books, this little 25 issues run was the buoy that kept the franchise afloat. Joss Whedon's return to comics had him condensing the convoluted history and world of the X-Men back to it's most basic roots. X-Men mainstays Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, and Emma Frost were joined by the returning from obscurity Kitty Pryde and Lockheed, and the returning from the dead Colossus and along with new characters Abigail Brand, Armor, and Danger (all of whom have stuck around long after the fact, along with Agent Brand's former employers S.W.O.R.D. who were also introduced in this series) in the telling of four now iconic X-Men stories that combined both homages and loving nods to the X-Men's golden past while pushing the franchise into new directions and exploring new territory.
If ever wanted to learn how to write team dynamics this is the book to study, every character gets thier moments to shine. Every character has unique dynamics and relationships with every other. I wish this book could have lasted 100 issues. I'm glad this book is perfect the way it is.
Oh yeah, this book was fucking funny too.
and heartbreaking
did I mention the pitch perfect homages to some of the greatest X-Men moments?
Oh and only the most badass thing that's ever happened in the entire history of comic books
Balefuego on
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UnbrokenEvaHIGH ON THE WIREBUT I WON'T TRIP ITRegistered Userregular
I'll second Astonishing X-Men and Angela: Asgard's Assassin
The idea of a Spawn character crossing over to the Marvel universe seemed like a kind of dumb idea, done more because they could than because it made sense story-wise. Making her Thor & Loki's sister was a stroke of brilliance. But as good as the 10th Realm mini was, it didn't really give me a great sense of Angela as a character beyond showing the culture in which she was raised - it was still Thor & Loki's story.
Luckily, they picked the best person in the company at writing reimagined Asgardian heroes whose books spun out of major event comics to write her solo series. It's a remarkably specific niche, but it's Gillen's specialty. I agree with everything Rainfall has said up there, and I hope the quality can continue with Bennett and Gillen switching roles and Bennett taking the lead writing-wise starting with the Secret Wars title.
Mostly everything I would nominate has enough mentions already so I will be nominating: Black Widow by Edmondson and Noto, Moon Knight by Ellis and Shalvey (Vol. 1) and Gotham Central by Brubaker, Rucka and Lark (Vol. 3)
-Captain America - Brubaker
-Immortal Iron Fist - Fraction/Brubaker
-Nextwave: Agents of Hate
-Hawkeye - Fraction
-Irredeemable Ant-Man
-Young Avengers v1
-Guardians of the Galaxy - Abnett/Lanning
-Nova - Abnett/Lanning
-Green Lantern Corps - Tomasi/Gibbons (pre 52)
-Green Lantern - Johns (pre 52)
-Flash (New 52) - Buccaletto/Manapul
-Wonder Woman (New 52) - Azzarello
-Animal Man (New 52) - Lemire
-Shazam - Johns ok so this one might be pushing it for a nom. since it was technically a backup story in JL for awhile, and not a seperate book, but it was DAMN good. The best thing Johns has written since the New 52 began.
Thats the big ones I can think of right now. I know Im missing some (wait just added 2 more...)
Buckle up kids, we're about to get meta. In this series Kieron Gillen takes one of Marvel's oldest and most intractable characters (who is in turn based on a character from legends that are literally centuries old) and puts him against the most intimidating, unyielding, undeniable villain in all of comic books.
The Status Quo.
After doing something no one expected at the end of Marvel's SIEGE event - namely, sacrificing himself to save Thor and Asgard. Loki is reborn with a new life and a new body as "Kid" Loki. Gillen explores the idea of wether this new Loki could really forge his own destiny unique from the past self everyone else remembers him as. The story absolutely works on the simple surface level of a thrilling adventure story from the perspective of an adolescent god of mischief, but as the series continued and began to move into it's endgame, the narrative traps that both Gillen and the former Loki have set begin to unspool and take shape, and the book becomes a meta commentary on the repetitive unchanging nature of superhero comics.
You see because Loki, as an archetypical god, is more than most characters hold hostage by the whims of "the story." And as that story reaches it's conclusion we realize as Kid Loki does himself that he's trapped by who he is. Wether his change is genuine or feigned, wether it lasts a year or 10, someone, somewhere will always eventually return him to his status quo. And Loki damns us all for being complicit in his own condemnation
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Mike Danger"Diane..."a place both wonderful and strangeRegistered Userregular
Seconding:
Hawkeye - Fraction/Aja Batman - Snyder/Capullo Batman and Robin - Morrison/various (Quitely?) Batwoman - Rucka/Williams Batgirl - Stewart/Tarr
New nominations:
Action Comics v1 - Morrison/Morales/Kubert Batman: The Black Glove - Morrison/Williams III/Daniel All-New X-Men - Bendis/Immonen
I already extolled the virtues of this book a bit back in the best new team nominations thread, but I want to reiterate that I think this is the single best X-Men story of the last decade. And I'm giving it bonus points for degree of difficulty since in the course of it he manages to completely salvage not one, not two, but THREE characters who no one knew who to write or what the hell to do with them before this series in Deadpool, Fantomex, and most importantly, and maybe most improbably - Pyslocke.
This is easily the best Pyslocke story of all time, ALL TIME. Holy shit she is so cool in this damn book.
I'm all over the place in my praise of this book but it's just because talking about it always makes me excited. Wether it's the brilliant use of the Age of Apocalypse timeline and characters (a rich vein that's never been mined better) to creating one of the most popular new X characters in recent memory with Evan Sabah Nur to did I mention again that he writes Deadpool as an actual goddamn fucking character thats possible to care about instead of some idiotic meme machine????
This book is the platonic ideal of superhero black ops stories. This book is the platonic ideal of how to take characters from the outskirts and edges of a franchise, and tell important, meaningful stories with them. This book is a high water mark in one of the biggest franchises in superhero comics. This book is Uncanny X-Force. Read it. Love it.
I'm going to second Action Comics by Grant Morrison and Animal Man by Jeff Lemire.
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HeatwaveCome, now, and walk the path of explosions with me!Registered Userregular
edited April 2015
All of the Peter Parker run of Ultimate Spider-man by Brian Michael Bendis. Even though it briefly changed it's name to Ultimate Comics Spider-man I count it all as part of the original title because of how it was released in the deluxe hardcover trades. Art by Mark Bagley, Stuart Immonen and David Lafuente.
The Ultimate Comics Spider-man run with Miles Morales. Art by Sara Pichelli, Chris Samnee, David Marquez. Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson. Art by Adrian Alphona. Hawkeye by Matt Fraction. Art by David Aja, Annie Wu, Javier Pulido, Steve Lieber, Jesse Hamm and Francesco Francavilla. Immortal Iron Fist by Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker. Art by David Aja andTravel Foreman. Black Widow by Nathan Edmondson. Art by Phil Noto. Moon Knight by Warren Ellis. Art by Declan Shalvey. New X-men: Childhood's End Volume 5 by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost. Art by Paco Medina, Skottie Young and Niko Henrichon.
Captain America Volume 5 (i.e Brubaker, Epting, et al).
It's hard to overstate just how important, how influential, how revolutionary this run was. When Brubaker took over Captain America in 2005 - there was no Marvel Cinematic Universe yet, Brian Michael Bendis was just starting out his New Avengers. We were still 3 years away from even the first inkling that the Avengers were about to become not only the biggest thing in comics but one of the most popular franchises in the world.
And I think a lot, a lot of that has to do with the work Ed Brubaker did on Captain America. If there's one comic that most directly matches and meshes with the tone of the current Marvel films, it's this one. And Brubaker took a character who had been sort of floundering and directionless for years, and showed us all that he could and should be a vital part of the Marvel universe. And he started this by breaking what was supposedly one of the cardinal rules of comics.
He brought back Bucky Barnes. And in doing so he created the Winter Soldier, a character who so resonated with fans that his name was right in the goddamn title of the 2nd Captain America movie. And then, after 25 issues of exploring the returned Bucky, and featuring Captain America starring in a political thriller/espionage book unlike anything else on the stands on the time, while also elevating important supporting characters like Falcon and Agent 13, Brubaker had another trick up his sleeve.
He killed Captain America.
Killed him! Killed him dead! And for the next YEAR, the Captain America title continued on, without it's central character, and yet with Bucky and Sharon and Sam carrying the load it remained the must read title every month. Hell it became even more of a must read even, and then Bru did it yet again turning the book on it's ear another time by giving us a new Captain America.
A Captain America who I'm fairly confident a lot of people on this board would still say is their favorite iteration of the mantle. Steve came back eventually of course, and he eventually took back the role (though not right away). But wether starring Steve or Bucky or both, this book was in my mind the spine of the marvel universe for much of the last decade, and is to me, the most direct link from the comics themselves to the crazy film universe we have now.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
I am going to nominate a book that I really love that I suspect won't make it on to this list:
Silver Surfer: Requiem by J. Michael Straczynski & Esad Ribic.
This is the story of the Silver Surfer's last days.
And against the history of J. Michael Straczynski's writing, it is very good.
It's the only comic to make me cry and I don't mean a tear or two. This comic actively made me put it down and go for a walk because it was too emotionally heavy for me to continue at that point.
Its art by Ribic is beautiful, its writing is poetic, its messages are near divine.
And so I nominate a book that resonated with me so well that at the end of it I had hoped the Silver Surfer had truly died in the comics, because there would never be a better exit for his character.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
I will also nominate:
Hickman's Fantastic Four
Jason Aaron's Thor: God of Thunder
Brubaker's Captain America
Pak's Planet Hulk
Parker's Thunderbolts/Dark Avengers
Azzarello's Wonder Woman
And if it's 2005-2008 time-span counts, Morrison's All-Star Superman
This is going to be a tough vote, because there's a lot of good stuff to vote for.
But yo, one thing that I'm sure of is this: I'm going to nominate All-Star Superman.
I'm not the biggest Superman fan in the world, but not because I don't like him or think that he's boring or whatever; I just never really got into him for some reason. Unfortunately, other Superman stories have their work cut out for them in grabbing my attention because All-Star Superman exists. It's the perfect Superman comic, and in many ways it might be just a perfect comic, period. Morrison gives us the simplest, most succinct summary of an origin story that everyone in the world already knows, and then moves on to the simplest and most brilliant premise: what does Superman do when he knows he does not have long to live? The answer to this is essentially a modern myth. It's a beautiful story that can sit outside of any continuity, and can remain evergreen.
There are a lot of details that can be pointed out about this comic, but I'll limit myself to one of my favorite touches: in many of the Clark Kent scenes, if you look, you'll see that Clark is saving people left and right without breaking character, all by doing "clumsy" things (like when he bumps into a person on the street, which makes them step onto the road a few moments later than they would have, which in turns keeps them from being run over by a truck).
All-Star Superman is a perfect, stand-alone story that encompasses everything that Superman is. Everyone should read it, especially people say that Superman is boring and or two-dimensional. If you can read only one superhero comic ever, I would recommend making it this one.
(Incidentally, if you've read Morrison's other DC work, you'll actually see All-Star tie into some of it, most obviously DC 1,000,000.)
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HeatwaveCome, now, and walk the path of explosions with me!Registered Userregular
I guess this might technically be two series (although the first 12 issues of FF actually counted as issues of Fantastic Four once they brought that back and started running both titles together so who knows) but to me it's impossible to separate them. So I'm going to nominate Fantastic Four and FF by Jonathan Hickman, Dale Eaglesham, Steve Epting, and Nick Dragota as one book.
This is Hickman's (Marvel) masterpiece. We have the now expected, elaborate, longform storytelling in which clockwork pieces of plot and character slowly click into place issues, arcs, even years later than when they were first introduced or hinted at. But now that precision is married to a story more about emotion and family than plot pyrotechnics (although there is still plenty of that to be sure.) Hickman comics almost always amaze me, or shock me, or thrill me. But this is the only one that's made me cry, and it did so multiple times throughout it's run.
It gave us big ideas
It gave us moments of mystery
It introduced us to new characters we grew to love
It gave us moments of heroism
Moments of wonder
And in my opinion the finest Doom I've ever had the joy of reading
This run also included pretty much the finest example of the "silent issue" I've ever seen and I'd literally post every fucking page of it in this post if I could.
I'm nominating Incredible Hercules for being hilarious and the best thing Greg Pak has written, but mostly for having some of the best onomatopoeia I've come across.
Ultimate Spider-Man (and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Miles Morales, it's all the same thing.)
Did you know this book has been running 15 goddamn years? I saw someone tweeting at Bendis just today that they started reading USM when they were 13 and they are 28 now. And in the 12 years or so that I've been reading comics on the regular - I've never missed an issue.
And throughout those 15 years and 200+ issues, Bendis has been at the helm with a multitude of artists, many of them who became stars on this very book (Immomen, Pichelli, LaFuente, Marquez) and he actually broke Lee and Kirby's record for longest sustained run on a single title with ol reliable Mark Bagley, who has drawn somewhere around 130+ issues of the series or something insane like that.
But what about the book itself you ask? Well, it's only the single best version of Peter Parker to ever grace a comic book page, it's been the life raft that has kept the Ultimate Universe afloat long after it ceased to matter outside of this one book, and that's a testament to how deeply this book resonated with people. It's also a testament to just how big a deal it was when back in 2011 Bendis did the unthinkable and killed off Peter Parker, only to replace him with a brand new Ultimate Spider-Man.
Enter Miles Morales. I think we were all a little surprised at just how well received Miles was, but given the pedigree of the book he was going to be starring in - there really should have been no need to worry. Miles took the mantle and ran with it, made it his own, and probably a spawned a whole new segment of fans for the book. Hell, he's such a big deal at this point, just 4 years later that he's about to make his jump to the big leagues and be an Avenger.
Now it'd be pretty impossible for me to troll through a series that's been running half again as long as this entire forum has been active looking for favorite moments, but there is one I will post.
Nominating Grant Morrison's Batman and Batman & Robin (pre-New 52.) I have to group these two together even if they show up on the ballot separately because they tell a single very entertaining story. Dick Grayson as Batman and Damien as Robin were and still are my favorite Dynamic Duo.
Seconding Secret Warriors, the only series I've ever enjoyed enough to justify purchasing the Omnibus.
Thirding (this sounds weird) Journey Into Mystery (Gillen) for reasons that Fearghaill and that smart person he quoted have already stated much more eloquently than I care to.
Fourthing (these aren't even real words anymore) Thor: God of Thunder
Whatever numbering Fantastic Four and FF by Hickman. These two also pretty much have to go together. I would argue that they should even appear together on the ballot unlike the Batman books above, because the story between the two is so intertwined that they would suffer individually.
I'm going to second Astonishing X-Men. That was one of the first comics I picked up as I was starting to get into buying comics for the first time, and it featured my two favorite X-Men of all time being uniformly awesome (Shadowcat and Colossus) so there's definitely no bias there
Seconding Superior Foes of Spider-Man, She-Hulk, Brubaker and Epting's run on Captain America, All-Star Superman, Journey Into Mystery.
I may have missed it if someone nominated it, but Mark Waid's run on Daredevil is a goddamn delight and deserves consideration. After defining runs by Bendis and Brubaker Waid has found a new angle on the character and made it his own book. The gorgeous art doesn't hurt.
I will second Superior Spider-Man as it's the best 'main' Spider-Man story in years (In my vulgar opinion) and one of the better "Freaky Friday" storylines implemented in a comic. Plus, I just can't say no to Doc Ock being a superhero the only way he knows how: by being a mad scientist super villain.
I will also second Gotham Central. For those who don't understand why a lot of us are wailing and tearing our hair out over Gotham (the TV show), go out and get Gotham Central. Just the first volume, I'll wait here for you to get back.
Done? OK, now you get it too. Familiar characters, Batman villains, and new characters with compelling stories and history you're hungry to get to the bottom of, Brubaker and Rucka took the police procedural and put it to page in the archetypical crime-infested city, showing just how interesting a Batman comic not focusing on Batman can be; how he's the urban legend, the uneasy ally and sometimes foil of the police. It showed the street level of universe changing events. It made the Joker showing up a truly horrifying, game-changing event with repercussions for the cast that resonated for the rest of the series. In short, outside maybe Zero Year, it was the best Batman comic in the last 10 years, and he was in there for maybe a cumulative 4 pages in the entire run. If you haven't read Gotham Central at all, do yourself a favor and pick it up, even if you don't vote for it. (Same could be said for just about every other nomination here though, really)
"Go down, kick ass, and set yourselves up as gods, that's our Prime Directive!"
Hail Hydra
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HeatwaveCome, now, and walk the path of explosions with me!Registered Userregular
Without even reading any nominations yet, I know this category is gonna be ridiculous, surprised the Big 2 weren't split. ( mostly cause one is gonna get CRUSHED)
I am going to nominate a book that I really love that I suspect won't make it on to this list:
Silver Surfer: Requiem by J. Michael Straczynski & Esad Ribic.
This is the story of the Silver Surfer's last days.
And against the history of J. Michael Straczynski's writing, it is very good.
It's the only comic to make me cry and I don't mean a tear or two. This comic actively made me put it down and go for a walk because it was too emotionally heavy for me to continue at that point.
Its art by Ribic is beautiful, its writing is poetic, its messages are near divine.
And so I nominate a book that resonated with me so well that at the end of it I had hoped the Silver Surfer had truly died in the comics, because there would never be a better exit for his character.
Oh man, I forgot about Silver Surfer: Requiem. What a fantastic, beautiful story. Seconded.
I'll third Astonishing X-Men, I forgot about how good that comic was. "Pete, hey. You won't believe the day I'm having."
I gotta say, Bale's write-ups are doing a bang-up job of swaying me. It doesn't hurt that he's legitimately picked some of the best, most important comics of the decade.
Seems like the nomimations list will be huge. Having more than 5 votes per voter may not be a bad thing. Honestly, if my phone's browser could handle the site better, I'd be writing more with my noms and nomming more.
Have to say that when it's all said and done, these'll make a solid "new to comics" thread.
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Green Lantern by Geoff Johns - an excellent book that surprisingly managed to stay fresh and fun for the majority of its run, even into the New 52. One of the best endings I've ever read for a comic run.
Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman - duh. I didn't expect to like the FF anymore after so many authors just made Reed into a dick over and over again when I tried to read it as a kid. Hickman rehabed Reed while at the same time moving his family a little closer to his position, expanding that family through the FF, and restoring the cosmic wonder to the F4 as a team.
FF by Matt Fraction and Michael Allred (and Laura Allred and Lee Allred) - I don't always buy into the big internet feels comics, but this was probably my favorite of the original Marvel NOW! titles. So warm and funny, while at the same time giving Scott Lang a really personal character arc. The art by the Allreds made the book feel even more personal, and really drove the title's sense of weird adventure.
Seconds for:
Wolverine and the X-Men - this at time came pretty close to how I felt about Fraction's FF. Just a wonderful book, and the thing that pulled me kicking and screaming into the Marvel U in time for AvX and Marvel NOW!
Avengers/New Avengers by Jonathan Hickman - more cosmic insanity.
I'm also going to second Wednesday Comics, Hawkeye, Captain America Volume 7 (Remender), Thor: God of Thunder, Batwoman, Cable and Deadpool, Green Lantern Corps, and 52. Phew!
And to clarify, which of you were nominating Hickman FF and which of you (if any) were nominating Fraction FF?
This is a cosmic book that's only had 5 issues, but the world building and characters have immediately jumped into full iconic status in my mind. Benning and Gillen have been given seemingly free reign to develop The Tenth Realm, and they've woven it into the existing cosmos masterfully.
On top of that, they've introduced one hell of a trans character who walks a perfect line between not being defined exclusively by her status as trans and yet making it a core part of the character. I'm not aware of any other major trans characters in Marvel right now, so it kind of stands out in that regard.
The art, by Stephanie Hans and Phil Jimenez, is equally impressive. It's not the best art I've seen in comics, but it's vibrant and distinctive, with a few pages of brilliant and beautiful storytelling images in the middle of each issue.
I expected the series to be average, maybe a little exciting, but I'm super in love with it.
Also nominating She-Hulk by Charles Soule and Javier Pulido
Fun, funny, fast paced, this is a perfect street level, light-hearted adventure, where Soule actually gets to flex some of his lawyer knowledge and drags out Patsy Walker, Hellcat, to team up with Shulkie, as well as a small handful of fantastic new characters. While it only lasted 12 issues, Howard the Duck is following directly in its footsteps (and is great too)
Those were the only DC books I read for a long period.
Astonishing X-Men by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday was the book that in my opinion saved the X-Men. Coming off an entire decade of confusion and turmoil in the books, this little 25 issues run was the buoy that kept the franchise afloat. Joss Whedon's return to comics had him condensing the convoluted history and world of the X-Men back to it's most basic roots. X-Men mainstays Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, and Emma Frost were joined by the returning from obscurity Kitty Pryde and Lockheed, and the returning from the dead Colossus and along with new characters Abigail Brand, Armor, and Danger (all of whom have stuck around long after the fact, along with Agent Brand's former employers S.W.O.R.D. who were also introduced in this series) in the telling of four now iconic X-Men stories that combined both homages and loving nods to the X-Men's golden past while pushing the franchise into new directions and exploring new territory.
If ever wanted to learn how to write team dynamics this is the book to study, every character gets thier moments to shine. Every character has unique dynamics and relationships with every other. I wish this book could have lasted 100 issues. I'm glad this book is perfect the way it is.
Oh yeah, this book was fucking funny too.
and heartbreaking
did I mention the pitch perfect homages to some of the greatest X-Men moments?
Oh and only the most badass thing that's ever happened in the entire history of comic books
The idea of a Spawn character crossing over to the Marvel universe seemed like a kind of dumb idea, done more because they could than because it made sense story-wise. Making her Thor & Loki's sister was a stroke of brilliance. But as good as the 10th Realm mini was, it didn't really give me a great sense of Angela as a character beyond showing the culture in which she was raised - it was still Thor & Loki's story.
Luckily, they picked the best person in the company at writing reimagined Asgardian heroes whose books spun out of major event comics to write her solo series. It's a remarkably specific niche, but it's Gillen's specialty. I agree with everything Rainfall has said up there, and I hope the quality can continue with Bennett and Gillen switching roles and Bennett taking the lead writing-wise starting with the Secret Wars title.
Steam: abunchofdaftpunk | PSN: noautomobilesgo | Lastfm: sjchszeppelin | Backloggery: colincummings | 3DS FC: 1392-6019-0219 |
-Captain America - Brubaker
-Immortal Iron Fist - Fraction/Brubaker
-Nextwave: Agents of Hate
-Hawkeye - Fraction
-Irredeemable Ant-Man
-Young Avengers v1
-Guardians of the Galaxy - Abnett/Lanning
-Nova - Abnett/Lanning
-Green Lantern Corps - Tomasi/Gibbons (pre 52)
-Green Lantern - Johns (pre 52)
-Flash (New 52) - Buccaletto/Manapul
-Wonder Woman (New 52) - Azzarello
-Animal Man (New 52) - Lemire
-Shazam - Johns ok so this one might be pushing it for a nom. since it was technically a backup story in JL for awhile, and not a seperate book, but it was DAMN good. The best thing Johns has written since the New 52 began.
Thats the big ones I can think of right now. I know Im missing some (wait just added 2 more...)
CRAP this will be a tough vote.
Journey Into Mystery by Kieron Gillen.
Buckle up kids, we're about to get meta. In this series Kieron Gillen takes one of Marvel's oldest and most intractable characters (who is in turn based on a character from legends that are literally centuries old) and puts him against the most intimidating, unyielding, undeniable villain in all of comic books.
The Status Quo.
After doing something no one expected at the end of Marvel's SIEGE event - namely, sacrificing himself to save Thor and Asgard. Loki is reborn with a new life and a new body as "Kid" Loki. Gillen explores the idea of wether this new Loki could really forge his own destiny unique from the past self everyone else remembers him as. The story absolutely works on the simple surface level of a thrilling adventure story from the perspective of an adolescent god of mischief, but as the series continued and began to move into it's endgame, the narrative traps that both Gillen and the former Loki have set begin to unspool and take shape, and the book becomes a meta commentary on the repetitive unchanging nature of superhero comics.
You see because Loki, as an archetypical god, is more than most characters hold hostage by the whims of "the story." And as that story reaches it's conclusion we realize as Kid Loki does himself that he's trapped by who he is. Wether his change is genuine or feigned, wether it lasts a year or 10, someone, somewhere will always eventually return him to his status quo. And Loki damns us all for being complicit in his own condemnation
Hawkeye - Fraction/Aja
Batman - Snyder/Capullo
Batman and Robin - Morrison/various (Quitely?)
Batwoman - Rucka/Williams
Batgirl - Stewart/Tarr
New nominations:
Action Comics v1 - Morrison/Morales/Kubert
Batman: The Black Glove - Morrison/Williams III/Daniel
All-New X-Men - Bendis/Immonen
Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender.
I already extolled the virtues of this book a bit back in the best new team nominations thread, but I want to reiterate that I think this is the single best X-Men story of the last decade. And I'm giving it bonus points for degree of difficulty since in the course of it he manages to completely salvage not one, not two, but THREE characters who no one knew who to write or what the hell to do with them before this series in Deadpool, Fantomex, and most importantly, and maybe most improbably - Pyslocke.
This is easily the best Pyslocke story of all time, ALL TIME. Holy shit she is so cool in this damn book.
I'm all over the place in my praise of this book but it's just because talking about it always makes me excited. Wether it's the brilliant use of the Age of Apocalypse timeline and characters (a rich vein that's never been mined better) to creating one of the most popular new X characters in recent memory with Evan Sabah Nur to did I mention again that he writes Deadpool as an actual goddamn fucking character thats possible to care about instead of some idiotic meme machine????
This book is the platonic ideal of superhero black ops stories. This book is the platonic ideal of how to take characters from the outskirts and edges of a franchise, and tell important, meaningful stories with them. This book is a high water mark in one of the biggest franchises in superhero comics. This book is Uncanny X-Force. Read it. Love it.
The Ultimate Comics Spider-man run with Miles Morales. Art by Sara Pichelli, Chris Samnee, David Marquez.
Ms. Marvel by G. Willow Wilson. Art by Adrian Alphona.
Hawkeye by Matt Fraction. Art by David Aja, Annie Wu, Javier Pulido, Steve Lieber, Jesse Hamm and Francesco Francavilla.
Immortal Iron Fist by Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker. Art by David Aja andTravel Foreman.
Black Widow by Nathan Edmondson. Art by Phil Noto.
Moon Knight by Warren Ellis. Art by Declan Shalvey.
New X-men: Childhood's End Volume 5 by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost. Art by Paco Medina, Skottie Young and Niko Henrichon.
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Captain America Volume 5 (i.e Brubaker, Epting, et al).
It's hard to overstate just how important, how influential, how revolutionary this run was. When Brubaker took over Captain America in 2005 - there was no Marvel Cinematic Universe yet, Brian Michael Bendis was just starting out his New Avengers. We were still 3 years away from even the first inkling that the Avengers were about to become not only the biggest thing in comics but one of the most popular franchises in the world.
And I think a lot, a lot of that has to do with the work Ed Brubaker did on Captain America. If there's one comic that most directly matches and meshes with the tone of the current Marvel films, it's this one. And Brubaker took a character who had been sort of floundering and directionless for years, and showed us all that he could and should be a vital part of the Marvel universe. And he started this by breaking what was supposedly one of the cardinal rules of comics.
He brought back Bucky Barnes. And in doing so he created the Winter Soldier, a character who so resonated with fans that his name was right in the goddamn title of the 2nd Captain America movie. And then, after 25 issues of exploring the returned Bucky, and featuring Captain America starring in a political thriller/espionage book unlike anything else on the stands on the time, while also elevating important supporting characters like Falcon and Agent 13, Brubaker had another trick up his sleeve.
He killed Captain America.
Killed him! Killed him dead! And for the next YEAR, the Captain America title continued on, without it's central character, and yet with Bucky and Sharon and Sam carrying the load it remained the must read title every month. Hell it became even more of a must read even, and then Bru did it yet again turning the book on it's ear another time by giving us a new Captain America.
A Captain America who I'm fairly confident a lot of people on this board would still say is their favorite iteration of the mantle. Steve came back eventually of course, and he eventually took back the role (though not right away). But wether starring Steve or Bucky or both, this book was in my mind the spine of the marvel universe for much of the last decade, and is to me, the most direct link from the comics themselves to the crazy film universe we have now.
Silver Surfer: Requiem by J. Michael Straczynski & Esad Ribic.
This is the story of the Silver Surfer's last days.
And against the history of J. Michael Straczynski's writing, it is very good.
It's the only comic to make me cry and I don't mean a tear or two. This comic actively made me put it down and go for a walk because it was too emotionally heavy for me to continue at that point.
Its art by Ribic is beautiful, its writing is poetic, its messages are near divine.
And so I nominate a book that resonated with me so well that at the end of it I had hoped the Silver Surfer had truly died in the comics, because there would never be a better exit for his character.
Hickman's Fantastic Four
Jason Aaron's Thor: God of Thunder
Brubaker's Captain America
Pak's Planet Hulk
Parker's Thunderbolts/Dark Avengers
Azzarello's Wonder Woman
And if it's 2005-2008 time-span counts, Morrison's All-Star Superman
Others that I will be voting for have already been nominated.
This category is going to be tough.
"Ride or Die" confirmed Dominic Toretto, as they took off to find the Dragon Balls in hopes of reviving their friend Sonic
But yo, one thing that I'm sure of is this: I'm going to nominate All-Star Superman.
I'm not the biggest Superman fan in the world, but not because I don't like him or think that he's boring or whatever; I just never really got into him for some reason. Unfortunately, other Superman stories have their work cut out for them in grabbing my attention because All-Star Superman exists. It's the perfect Superman comic, and in many ways it might be just a perfect comic, period. Morrison gives us the simplest, most succinct summary of an origin story that everyone in the world already knows, and then moves on to the simplest and most brilliant premise: what does Superman do when he knows he does not have long to live? The answer to this is essentially a modern myth. It's a beautiful story that can sit outside of any continuity, and can remain evergreen.
There are a lot of details that can be pointed out about this comic, but I'll limit myself to one of my favorite touches: in many of the Clark Kent scenes, if you look, you'll see that Clark is saving people left and right without breaking character, all by doing "clumsy" things (like when he bumps into a person on the street, which makes them step onto the road a few moments later than they would have, which in turns keeps them from being run over by a truck).
All-Star Superman is a perfect, stand-alone story that encompasses everything that Superman is. Everyone should read it, especially people say that Superman is boring and or two-dimensional. If you can read only one superhero comic ever, I would recommend making it this one.
(Incidentally, if you've read Morrison's other DC work, you'll actually see All-Star tie into some of it, most obviously DC 1,000,000.)
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I guess this might technically be two series (although the first 12 issues of FF actually counted as issues of Fantastic Four once they brought that back and started running both titles together so who knows) but to me it's impossible to separate them. So I'm going to nominate Fantastic Four and FF by Jonathan Hickman, Dale Eaglesham, Steve Epting, and Nick Dragota as one book.
This is Hickman's (Marvel) masterpiece. We have the now expected, elaborate, longform storytelling in which clockwork pieces of plot and character slowly click into place issues, arcs, even years later than when they were first introduced or hinted at. But now that precision is married to a story more about emotion and family than plot pyrotechnics (although there is still plenty of that to be sure.) Hickman comics almost always amaze me, or shock me, or thrill me. But this is the only one that's made me cry, and it did so multiple times throughout it's run.
It gave us big ideas
It gave us moments of mystery
It introduced us to new characters we grew to love
It gave us moments of heroism
Moments of wonder
And in my opinion the finest Doom I've ever had the joy of reading
This run also included pretty much the finest example of the "silent issue" I've ever seen and I'd literally post every fucking page of it in this post if I could.
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Ultimate Spider-Man (and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man, and Ultimate Comics Spider-Man: Miles Morales, it's all the same thing.)
Did you know this book has been running 15 goddamn years? I saw someone tweeting at Bendis just today that they started reading USM when they were 13 and they are 28 now. And in the 12 years or so that I've been reading comics on the regular - I've never missed an issue.
And throughout those 15 years and 200+ issues, Bendis has been at the helm with a multitude of artists, many of them who became stars on this very book (Immomen, Pichelli, LaFuente, Marquez) and he actually broke Lee and Kirby's record for longest sustained run on a single title with ol reliable Mark Bagley, who has drawn somewhere around 130+ issues of the series or something insane like that.
But what about the book itself you ask? Well, it's only the single best version of Peter Parker to ever grace a comic book page, it's been the life raft that has kept the Ultimate Universe afloat long after it ceased to matter outside of this one book, and that's a testament to how deeply this book resonated with people. It's also a testament to just how big a deal it was when back in 2011 Bendis did the unthinkable and killed off Peter Parker, only to replace him with a brand new Ultimate Spider-Man.
Enter Miles Morales. I think we were all a little surprised at just how well received Miles was, but given the pedigree of the book he was going to be starring in - there really should have been no need to worry. Miles took the mantle and ran with it, made it his own, and probably a spawned a whole new segment of fans for the book. Hell, he's such a big deal at this point, just 4 years later that he's about to make his jump to the big leagues and be an Avenger.
Now it'd be pretty impossible for me to troll through a series that's been running half again as long as this entire forum has been active looking for favorite moments, but there is one I will post.
Seconding Secret Warriors, the only series I've ever enjoyed enough to justify purchasing the Omnibus.
Thirding (this sounds weird) Journey Into Mystery (Gillen) for reasons that Fearghaill and that smart person he quoted have already stated much more eloquently than I care to.
Fourthing (these aren't even real words anymore) Thor: God of Thunder
Whatever numbering Fantastic Four and FF by Hickman. These two also pretty much have to go together. I would argue that they should even appear together on the ballot unlike the Batman books above, because the story between the two is so intertwined that they would suffer individually.
I may have missed it if someone nominated it, but Mark Waid's run on Daredevil is a goddamn delight and deserves consideration. After defining runs by Bendis and Brubaker Waid has found a new angle on the character and made it his own book. The gorgeous art doesn't hurt.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I will also second Gotham Central. For those who don't understand why a lot of us are wailing and tearing our hair out over Gotham (the TV show), go out and get Gotham Central. Just the first volume, I'll wait here for you to get back.
Done? OK, now you get it too. Familiar characters, Batman villains, and new characters with compelling stories and history you're hungry to get to the bottom of, Brubaker and Rucka took the police procedural and put it to page in the archetypical crime-infested city, showing just how interesting a Batman comic not focusing on Batman can be; how he's the urban legend, the uneasy ally and sometimes foil of the police. It showed the street level of universe changing events. It made the Joker showing up a truly horrifying, game-changing event with repercussions for the cast that resonated for the rest of the series. In short, outside maybe Zero Year, it was the best Batman comic in the last 10 years, and he was in there for maybe a cumulative 4 pages in the entire run. If you haven't read Gotham Central at all, do yourself a favor and pick it up, even if you don't vote for it. (Same could be said for just about every other nomination here though, really)
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Oh man, I forgot about Silver Surfer: Requiem. What a fantastic, beautiful story. Seconded.
I gotta say, Bale's write-ups are doing a bang-up job of swaying me. It doesn't hurt that he's legitimately picked some of the best, most important comics of the decade.
Have to say that when it's all said and done, these'll make a solid "new to comics" thread.